The Governator and the CA Nursing Board

Calif. nursing board revamped after investigation
3 hours ago
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fired three of his seven appointees to the California Board of Registered Nursing and ordered a review of its operations after an investigation revealed it takes more than three years on average to resolve complaints against nurses.
Schwarzenegger named a total of six new people to the nine-member panel late Monday after the joint investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the investigative group ProPublica. The board regulates California's 350,000 registered nurses.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that it takes years to investigate such outrageous allegations of misconduct against licensed health professionals whom the public rely on for their health and well-being," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
The governor's cabinet secretary, Victoria Bradshaw, said the potential public health threat made it necessary to take immediate action.
"We want to see change and we want to see it now, not three years from now," Bradshaw said.
Along with the three fired members, the governor filled two vacant seats and replaced one member who quit.
The term of another Schwarzenegger appointee, Nancy Beacham, expires in June 2010 and she cannot be removed before then. The remaining two members of the board are appointed by the Legislature.
The board's executive director of 16 years, Ruth Ann Terry, will stay on unless the panel decides otherwise. However, Bradshaw said there were "no sacred cows" in the operation of the board.
"She shouldn't, and nobody should, assume they are safe doing what they're doing now," she said.
Administration officials previously were "not necessarily happy with the speed with which the board operated" but were not aware of allegations as severe as those contained in the newspaper report, Bradshaw said.
The Times and ProPublica found that violent or negligent nurses were allowed to stay on the job for years amid sluggish board reviews.
Appointed to the panel Tuesday were Ann Boynton, 47, a former undersecretary for the Health and Human Services Agency; Judy Corless, 58, a clinical nursing director at the Corona Outpatient Surgical Center; Jeannine Graves, 49, a staff nurse for Capitol Surgical Associates and the Mercy San Juan Medical Center; former Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board Chairman Richard Rice, 60; Catherine Todero, 57, director of the school of nursing at San Diego State University; and Kathrine Ware, 50, a nurse practitioner at the University of California Davis vascular center.
The compensation is a $100 for each day worked.
The administration is also reviewing other state boards to see whether there are similar delays, Bradshaw said.
"We are going to make sure there are no other boards with which this is an issue. Zero," she said.